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Words not said Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair991120b.html On Wednesday, a federal law enforcement official said that just before the autopilot was turned off and the fatal dive began, the crew member in the co-pilot’s seat was recorded as saying: “I made my decision now. I put my faith in God’s hands.”
But on Friday, a government official said the first of those sentences — the one about making a decision — is not on the tape, the Associated Press and Reuters reported Saturday, quoting anonymous sources.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair991120b.html
Suspicions Dog EgyptAir Investigation
Questions Surround Statements on Voice Recorder
Egyptian investigators and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials listen to the cockpit voice recorder of EgyptAir flight 990 at NTSB headquarters in Washington. (Manny Ceneta/Reuters)
ABCNEWS.com
W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 20 — Difficulties salvaging the plane’s remains and interpreting phrases on the cockpit voice recorder continue to dog the investigation of the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990.
Only small bits of the plane have been recovered, and the recovery process has been slowed by bad weather. The National Transportation Safety Board has also backed away from a theory that the crash may have been intentionally caused, though officials still refuse to rule it out.
In Egypt, the intentional-crash theory has caused popular anger and anti-American sentiment. The local press has filled with conspiracy theories about the cause of the crash, and relatives of the plane's co-pilot said he would not have committed suicide.
The New York-to-Cairo jetliner crashed off Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island, killing all 217 people aboard, including two pilots and two relief pilots.
ABCNEWS’ Lisa Stark on the continuing investigation into the crash of Egyptair Flight 990.
Suspicious Phrase Not On Voice Recorder?
On Wednesday, a federal law enforcement official said that just before the autopilot was turned off and the fatal dive began, the crew member in the co-pilot’s seat was recorded as saying: “I made my decision now. I put my faith in God’s hands.”
But on Friday, a government official said the first of those sentences — the one about making a decision — is not on the tape, the Associated Press and Reuters reported Saturday, quoting anonymous sources. It apparently arose from confusion among investigators, the official said. Despite this, the head of the team investigating the Oct. 31 crash said that the crash still “might—and I emphasize might—be the result of a deliberate act.”
The statement by James Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety board, is less than comforting to the family of Gameel El-Batouty, the co-pilot who was wrongly suspected of saying “I have made my decision” just before the plane began to dive.
Walid El-Batouty, the co-pilot’s nephew, said: “We’d like to hear some leak saying ‘No, he is not the one.’”
Cause of Crash Still a Mystery
It was Hall who raised the possibility that EgyptAir 990 might have crashed due to a criminal act, when he told reporters Monday the safety board might yield leadership of the probe.
And yesterday, he did not back away from safety board statements on the crash, including when he said Tuesday: “We have so far found no sign of a mechanical or weather related event that could have caused this accident.”
The NTSB has said the engines were turned off during the dive. There are also indications on the flight data recorder that the captain and the co-pilot were in a contest over the controls, with the captain wanting to pull the nose up and the person in the co-pilot’s seat commanding the nose to go down.
Hall said another Navy vessel will travel from Portugal to assist in bringing up more plane wreckage and human remains. The ship should arrive around Dec. 1, and the recovery could go on for weeks after that, he said.
U.S. Officials Decry ‘Speculation’
One U.S. official described the translation error as an “innocent mistake” but was unsure how it had happened. The official said it may have been the difference between an early interpretation of Arabic on the tape and a later listening.
In a conference with reporters, Hall said speculation about words captured on the cockpit voice recorder had caused unnecessary pain and “done a disservice to the longstanding friendship between the people of the United States of America and Egypt.”
U.S. Representative Jack Metcalf, a Republican from Washington state, said he would switch to EgyptAir for a Nov. 30 flight from New York to Cairo for meetings with Egyptian officials as a protest at the “premature and irresponsible speculation.”
“There are family members who are needlessly being anguished by these stories that are being splashed across newspaper headlines,” said Metcalf, who sits on the House of Representatives Aviation Subcommittee and in whose district Boeing 777, 747, and 767 planes are built.
Egyptians Denounce Suicide Theory
U.S. theories that the crash may have been deliberate have sparked anger in Egypt.
Walid El-Batouty said no one in the family or among their friends or even strangers they encountered believed that Gameel El-Batouty, a financially well-off father of five, would have tried to kill himself or an entire planeload of people.
Now, he said, the family just wants to retreat into privacy and await the outcome of the investigation.
“We wish and we pray that no more leaks come,” he said. “Nobody on Earth would like to be in our position.” The hurt, he said, was “something beyond imagination.”
Walid repeated what family members have said in the past few days, that there was no reason for El-Batouty to end his life: he was financially secure, he was looking forward to retirement from EgyptAir in March and devoting more time to his plant nursery, spending more time with his youngest child, 10-year-old Aya, and an engagement party in two months’ time for his son Mohammed.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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